The Wishing Egg
by PriestessOfNox
Summary: After Superman returns to the past Brainy is given a egg meant to grant him a wish. He doesn't really believe that it will work but what happens when it does? SLASH
1. Chapter 1

09/10/08

Just a random idea I thought of around Easter that I thought might be cute. The idea resurfaced after reading xxxHolic #10.

So far I hate all of my classes and think that I must secretly hate myself to have become an English major. I honestly don't care or want to know any of the stuff from my classes and the only reason I'm taking them is because of requirements.

Enjoy.

The Wishing Egg

Chapter 1

Bouncing Boy insisted that he thought it was a good idea: give the Legion a chance to talk to civilians in a casual setting, but it was nothing short of a riot.

Outside Legion headquarters the town had set up a small carnival with a superhero theme. Many of history's heroes were there in some way in posters and other such prizes for the games; including Superman, who had returned to the past but a month previously.

Since the entire Legion was required to spend at least an hour each at the carnival, Brainy was forced to walk amongst hundreds of Superman smiles that seemed to mock him as they looked straight through the Coluan from every angle.

He couldn't understand why he missed Superman so badly. He couldn't understand his desire to run away from all his images, lock himself in his room and try to pretend that they had never met to begin with.

Making a mental note, Brainy marked down a time to do a self diagnostic to figure out why his chest was hurting so badly.

"Brainiac Five!"

Something else to look into was a repellent for strange girls that followed him everywhere, giggling…

Trying to remind himself that it wasn't in the best interests of the Legion to outwardly show how much these girls annoyed him, Brainy turned in the direction he had heard his name called.

Three girls had come forward, one of them – the one in the middle – looked particularly nervous. She was holding something in her hands.

"Yes?" he asked.

The girls on either side of the middle girl looked at each other and nodded. Together they gave the middle girl a firm push forwards.

Barely managing not to fall over, the nervous girl was less then a foot away from him now.

It might have been wise to take a precautionary step back…

The girl was wringing the item she was holding, possibly a rabbit's foot. He recalled that humans tended to find this appendage lucky; though it was certainly unlucky for the rabbit to say the least.

"Brainiac Five, I- I- I like you!"

What an absurd notion. This was the first time he had ever seen this girl. How could she possibly know him well enough to like him? There were members of the Legion whom he saw practically every day who didn't like him.

"Would you go on a date with me?" asked the girl, barely meeting his eye.

Even though he couldn't see him, Brainy heard Lightning Lad snickering.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know you well enough to accept that invitation."

The two girls from earlier gave Brainy a pair of identical dirty looks but the nervous girl just smiled.

"I kinda figured but I still wanted to ask." She extended her shaking arms to hold out to him the item she had been wringing.

Curious, Brainy took it – a simple yellowish egg.

"It's a wishing egg," the girl smiled. "It gave me the courage to talk to you, now I want you to have it."

"I don't-" Brainy began, trying to give her the egg back. He didn't believe in wish granting objects.

"Please keep it," she girl withdrew her hands and didn't wait for his reply: turning and rushing away.

If her two friends' death glares were any indication, she had probably started to cry.

Even after Brainy's sentence at the carnival was over, he continued to be harassed by Lightning Lad about 'breaking that poor girl's heart' and the Triplicates asking for the details of the encounter over and over and over again.

It was a relief when the time came to recharge for the night.

Sitting on his bed, Brainy examined the egg he had been given: as big as a chicken egg but yellow in color. He couldn't recognize it from any egg-laying species in his databanks but he could look it up again tomorrow.

Placing the egg on his headboard – which was like a little shelf that included a datapad in case he had ideas for inventions during the night – he lay down and curled to his side to go to sleep.

Later that night, when he turned in his sleep, he jostled the headboard just enough so that the egg rolled onto the bed with him, down the pillow and bumped against his hand.

Yawning, he took hold of the egg and held it gently against his chest; his hand upturned, and continued to dream – not even noticing the warmth and tiny pulse the egg had begun to give off.


	2. Chapter 2

10/01/08

The month of Halloween. -stares at calendar longingly-

Yep... so classes are running me down. I need to read all of Moby Dick in a week, seven chapter of Jack Kerouac's On the Road and some stuff from his journal for tomorrow, plus the same amount for Tuesday, plus stupid political blogs, plus a test of British Literary Periods tomorrow. -silently screams-

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I'm feeling completely uninspired. And when I'm inspired I rarely feel like writing. The reason this got done is because I wrote it in class instead of listening to my teacher rant political advertisments for three hours. So please be patient with updates and any comments for any of my stories would be greatly appreciated and loved, even more then usual; especially with Unexpected Changes, since I have been unable to write a paragraph of it since the last chapter was posted, and Missing Pieces.

Happy Hunting...

Chapter 2

It was a movement outside of himself that caused Brainy's mind to stir with consciousness long before his internal clock dictated that it was time to wake up. Keeping his eyes closed, he waited to see if the movement would happen again; but before it did, he came to realize that there was something warm in his hand.

He really was going to have to have a talk with Lightning Lad about putting his hand in warm water to see if he would wet himself.

After lifting his hand to shake it, Brainy realized that his fingers had instinctively curled inwards to hold onto the warm object instead of stretching out to let what he had thought was water drip away. And since his assumption of blame had been wrong, Brainy still didn't know what was in his hand.

Wearily opening his eyes, Brainy was immediately questioning whether he had really opened them or if he had only dreamt doing so. He blinked, pinched his cheek with his free hand and quickly did a complicated math problem but they all pointed to this being real.

In his hand was a small Clark; as long as the width of his hand, in a white shirt, red sweater vest and jeans, missing the glasses but with the famous Superman curl loose on its forehead. Its eyes were closed, little hands and arms resting on top of Brainy's fingers. It was breathing…

At this point Brainy may have said something – a curse or a general yell, but had already forgotten what it was, if anything, when he dropped the little Clark and simultaneously rolled off the bed away from it. Him?

His eyes staring forward at the other half of his room, Brainy heard a little yelp but not the sound of anything landing on the bed after he let go of his visitor. With hesitant curiosity he raised himself upwards until his gaze was above the edge of his mattress.

The little Clark, his blue eyes wide, was floating above the bed, arms shot out, legs kicking about for balance; dangling in the air almost like a spider. Looking up, his eyes met Brainy's and he immediately straightened up like a soldier, his face red. He drifted down to land on the bed, stretching out his arms again, now smiling.

"Ta da!"

Brainy stared for a moment, blinking rapidly, then went back to lying on the floor and pulled the fallen pillow over his head.

"Brainy?"

_Ignore it. It will go away._

"Brainy?"

There was a tug on the pillow. The Coluan tightened his hold on it.

Suddenly he was being pulled violently upwards.

Letting go of the pillow, Brainy watched as the little Clark tossed it over his head and into the wall, and his little face flushed when it landed with a thud on the floor.

"Sorry…"

"This isn't happening," Brainy got to his feet, headed to his bathroom and quickly got into the shower. Scrubbing his face, he tried to remember if he had breathed in any toxic fumes, hit his head or if there was a possibility he had been drugged at any point in he evening.

"I'll scrub your back Brainy!"

Nearly falling over, Brainy swung around and saw that the little Clark had joined him in the shower and was holding a washcloth in front of his small naked body.

They were both naked…

"_Get out!_"

The little Clark was dressed and pouting, sitting on the returned pillow when Brainy came out of the bathroom.

_Still here_, Brainy absently noted. "Turn around, you."

Obeying the order, the little Clark turned and flopped onto his stomach with a little 'humph'.

After getting dressed, Brainy sat on the floor beside the bed again.

"What are you?"

Flipping onto his back, the little Clark sat up, holding onto his ankles.

"I'm not a _what_!"

"Fine; _who_ are you?" Brainy reminded himself not to roll his eyes.

"I'm Clark," the tiny voice shouted, nearly loud enough to be the speaking voice of a normal sized person.

"You're a little small for that," Brainy probably would have rolled his eyes then if he hadn't been staring blankly down at the small figure to get his point across.

Even in its small scale, Brainy could see the down turning of the little Clark's lips.

"Aren't I what you wanted?"

Brainy blinked.

"What?"

The blue eyes suddenly seemed very big.

"I'm what you wished for, aren't I?"


	3. Chapter 3

11/14/08

This is the only use I get out of my 3 hour classes. Now if you excuse me I have three papers to write. T-T

Chapter 3

Brainy considered laughing.

_No_, this wasn't even remotely funny.

"I didn't make any wish!"

"Yes you did – or I wouldn't have hatched!" Little Clark sprang up and shook his tiny fists at his sides.

_Hatched_?

Nearly falling over in his rush to get up, Brainy examined his headboard, going so far as to toss the objects there to the side, lifting the pillows and little Clark at the same time, and threw off the covers and sheets, but to no avail; the yellow egg was gone. Not even a piece of the shell was left to analyze under a microscope.

"Why the sprock would I wish for a Clark miniature?!"

"I'm not a miniature," little Clark actually _whimpered_, his lip trembling, peering up at the Coluan with huge, watering blue eyes. He covered his face with his loosely clenched fists, barely audible sniffles escaping him.

_Clark would not cry like this_, was Brainy's immediate thought before it truly kicked in that little Clark was, indeed, crying.

This small being wasn't Clark. He had just _hatched_. Brainy's eyes widened.

Oh_ grife, _he just made an infant cry.

"Hey,"

Little Clark peered up at him through his cow-licked bangs.

Pulling on the discarded sheet, Brainy gently dabbed little Clark's miniscule cheeks with the corner.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't want to send me away?" Little Clark urgently took hold of Brainy's finger with both of his hands.

"It would be rather cruel of me to make you fend for yourself after wishing for you," Brainy replied.

A big smile broke out on little Clark's face.

It reminded Brainy that he had scheduled in an appointment with his self-diagnostic machine to check on the irregularity of his heartbeat later that day.

"I'm still not sure what to make of this," Brainy admitted.

"We'll figure it out," little Clark grinned, sitting on the palm of Brainy's hand like one would a comfy chair.

"Should I tell the others about you?" Brainy questioned.

"I'm _your_ wish, but it's up to you," little Clark leaned on Brainy's thumb like an armrest.

Taking a moment to think about it, Brainy shivered.

"You might be safe around the males but I fear what the females would do to you. Maybe not Saturn Girl but certainly Triplicate Girl… and most definitely Phantom Girl."

Little Clark just looked at him and blinked slowly.

Brainy thought it was best not to explain.

"Do you eat?"

Again, little Clark blinked but this time he consulted the ceiling. "I think so."

"You think so?"

"I haven't gotten hungry yet," little Clark returned his gaze to the Coluan.

It took Brainy a moment to look up the time in his mind, having usually ignored it for a more organic sense of time.

"Breakfast should be over soon. We'll be able to see if there's anything that appeals to you once everyone has left the kitchen."

He was just wondering how he would transfer the smaller version of his friend to the kitchen without anyone seeing him, when little Clark flew out of his seat.

Without explaining or waiting to ask for permission, little Clark settled himself on Brainy's shoulder, resting against his neck and using the golden hair as a curtain to conceal himself from plain sight.

Though Brainy had forgotten how to breathe for a moment, he stood and returned to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

His reflection appeared to be alone but he knew that Clark was with him.

"This works."


	4. Chapter 4

02/01/09

freya kurenai asked me to update with "Brainy in a french maid outfit on top" and, seriously, how could I say no to that? :3

Let's see... What's new? I've graduated from college, it's my birthday next month (Can you believe I'm going to be 23?) and I'm trying to look into programs that will allow me to go to Japan to teach English. I know the Jet Program is the most widely known but I only want to go for a few months; not a 1-3 years.

Chapter 4

The walk from his room to the kitchen had never seemed so long, nor had the empty halls ever seemed so full of eyes. Brainy kept adjusting his hair to make sure that little Clark was properly covered; though he supposed to the cameras it must have looked like his neck itched chronically.

It was in the middle of one of these almost-twitches that Brainy's fingers brushed against the living lump cuddled against his throat, invoking a giggle from below his ear. He almost feigned a laugh to cover it up but quickly realized that he had no reason to laugh – to do so would only be random and appear out of character to the camera and any viewer of its footage, and it was very unlikely the camera's audio sensors could have caught the tiny noise anyway.

This 'wish' business was doing nothing for his sanity.

The kitchen – currently camera-free due to the end result of Timer Wolf's attempt to teach Phantom Girl to bake – was suddenly Brainy's favorite place in the world. Not including his lab, of course.

"Hey B5, did your internal alarm break?" Lightning Lad joked, his voice laced with silent mirth.

Thankful for the familiarity of ignoring him, Brainy scanned the rest of the room; only Triplicate Girl was left eating while Lightning Lad, not getting the desired reaction, plodded elsewhere, possibly to join the others relaxing in the lounge, training, or doing whatever activity his fellow Legionnaires did without a mission to attend to.

Standing and smiling when she saw him, Triplicate Girl divided herself into three. Orange went to wash the dishes she had used, White put away the orange juice and got out the milk while Purple got a plate of eggs, waffles and bacon out of the microwave and set it on the table. After putting away the dried dishes, Orange walked over as White poured a glass of milk and set it down next to the plate. Soon they walked into each other and she was whole again.

"Don't work too hard, Super Brain."

With a wink and a smile, Triplicate Girl thought she left Brainy to eat in peace.

Brainy, meanwhile, couldn't figure out why his heart had started to pound again.

"She's nice," little Clark grinned, popping out of Brainy's hair and flying over to the plate, sniffing the air much like a puppy smelling something for the first time. If he had had a tail Brainy imagined it would be wagging.

Absently making a confirming noise, Brainy flattened his hair that had been blown about by little Clark's sudden flight away and walked over to the cabinet.

It took some digging, but he finally found the small measuring cup used to dispense medicine to Legionnaires who weren't quite in bad enough shape to be in the medical center. It was still big, but it would do until he found a more suitable replacement.

Walking back to the table and sitting down, Brainy poured some milk from his glass into the cap and set it next to little Clark before attempting to cut up some food small enough for little Clark to eat.

Curious, little Clark kneeled down and put his hands on the rim of the cap and peered down at his reflection in the off-white surface. He poked his finger into it a few times to watch the ripples.

"You drink it," Brainy explained, putting four waffle chunks, cut up so each indented square was its own piece, on the edge of the plate for him along with some bacon, nearly the size of crumbs.

"I knew that," little Clark insisted, lifting the cap and putting it to his lips.

When he tilted it, the milk cascaded rapidly forward, attempting to drown him, and he immediately dropped the cap, coughing and spluttering and dripping.

Brainy immediately lamented that he had gotten little Clark something too big for him to drink from and attempted to rub the little back with his finger.

"Are you alright?"

Calming, little Clark looked up with his dripping face and crossed his arms in front of his tiny chest.

"I don't like milk."


	5. Chapter 5

08/06/09

I love fairs. It's a good excuse to pig out, be lazy and spend like crazy. ... My excuse is that I'm stimulating the ecomony. =3

Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Little Clark used the supplied napkin like a towel to dry off, and went about eating his bits of waffle with both of his hands, almost as if eating a burger.

He smiled after a moment, the syrup Brainy had provided dripping down his chin. "I like waffles."

"I think you would like milk if you gave it another try," Brainy commented, half thinking about better ways for little Clark to eat; perhaps a shrink ray to make some small glasses and utensils? Would shrinking it make food taste bad though?

Slowly turning his head, little Clark eyed the half-empty cap like Superman would have a deadly enemy. He walked cautiously towards it, as if trying to sneak up on it, and, hesitantly, picked it up, squeezed his eyes shut and took a drink.

"…Well?" Brainy prompted.

Opening his eyes, little Clark brought he cap closer to the plate he shared with Brainy and sat back down.

"It's okay."

"Want some more?" Brainy asked.

Lifting the makeshift cup, little Clark nodded. This time Brainy only filled it half-way so as not to risk giving him another milk shower.

The rest of the meal carried on uneventfully, and after Brainy had cleared the rest of the table, little Clark returned to hiding in his hair.

Though he returned to the camera-laden hallway, Brainy was much more at ease with walking to his lab then he had been on the way to the kitchen. It didn't even bother him when little Clark began to talk softly into his ear, saying what he had enjoyed at breakfast and how he smelt like lukewarm milk.

When they got to the lab little Clark flew out of Brainy's hair and began to look around, already seeming to know better than to touch anything. With him occupied, Brainy looked around at the things he had lying around until he found a rimmed bowl. He didn't remember why it was in there, but he washed it out at his sink, filled it with warm water and placed it on the counter. Then, going to his emergency shower – for things such as chemical spills or days where he didn't leave the lab at all – he grabbed the bottle of shampoo and sliced a bit off of the bar of soap. The slice was put on the bowl's rim along with a dab of shampoo.

"Little Clark, come wash up."

Flying over, little Clark landed on Brainy's wrist while the Coluan was setting down a small towel for him.

"Are you going to keep calling me 'Little Clark' forever?"

"Is there something you would prefer?" Brainy asked.

Little Clark flew up and landed on Brainy's forehead, like a butterfly. He kneeled on it, his hands supporting him as he looked at Brainy upside down.

"Clark!"

Brainy nearly had to go crossed eyes to return his gaze.

"You may look like him, but you are not Clark."

Little Clark puffed out his cheeks. "Yes I am!"

The potential headache wasn't worth winning this argument.

"Fine, but I'm not calling you 'Clark'. It would be too confusing to call you both 'Clark' when he comes back."

"But you don't call him 'Clark', you call him 'Superman'," little Clark protested.

"What? You want to be called Super Chibi?" Brainy smirked.

"Stop calling me little," little Clark whined. He blinked suddenly. "You know Japanese?"

"I know all of Earth's languages, past and present," Brainy frowned at his surprise. "How do you know Japanese?"

"Lots of the kids at school like manga," replied little Clark, talking as if he had gone to Smallville High. "I also know 'yes', 'no', 'cute', 'good morning' and 'pervert'. Apparently a lot of the football players are perverts."

"I can imagine," Brainy tried not to sound annoyed. "Look, if you don't like 'little Clark' and I won't call you 'Clark' we need to find some sort of middle ground."

"No middle ground," little Clark shook his head. "I'm Clark!"

Brainy groaned. _Here comes that headache…_


	6. Chapter 6

09/27/09

Happy last day of Clark+Brainy week! ... It's so sad! T-T

On DeviantArt I'll try to compose all the entries for this week onto my journal so everyone can see them.

In other news I was look at my stories and I realized I just missed the 2 year anniversary of when I started writing LOSH fanfiction since the first chapter of Broken Gears was publishes on 09/17/07. And I already, by a long shot, missed the 1 year anniversary of it being completed since the final chapter was published 03/16/08 which is cool since I've always considered 16 to be a luck number. =D In any case I feel like I should celebrate somehow. A fanart contest? Declare next week Broken Gears week? ... Not sure how that would work. Any suggestions?

On a random note I posted some pictures of little clay Brainys to be made into jewelry on my DA account if anyone is interested.

ENJOY!

Chapter 6

In the end it turned out that they couldn't agree. No matter what Brainy said, little Clark insisted on being called 'Clark'. At one point Brainy thought he had called him 'annoying little Clark lookalike' but if he had actually said it out loud, little Clark didn't acknowledge the insult.

By the time they had agreed to disagree, the water in the bowl had gotten cold.

Stripping, little Clark reheated the water with his heat vision and jumped in, making a tiny splash, the bowl almost like a small swimming pool to him – much too big to be a bathtub.

Taking little Clark's clothes, Brainy put them through Computo's cleaning program, normally saved for materials he would be experimenting on, and scanned them. Except for their size, there was nothing unusual about them.

"Computo, is your replication program currently capable of creating clothes of this size?" Brainy questioned, doing a search through the clothing database at the same time, finding things real Clark had replicated while there.

"Affirmative," Computo confirmed.

Brainy thought a moment and selected a few other things along with the aforementioned list of clothes and ordered them to be replicated.

Not paying attention to what Brainy was doing, little Clark swam about in the bowl, doing a few laps before scooping up some of the shampoo in both his hands. Though it wasn't even half the dab, the shampoo plopped down his arms and then his neck when he dropped it on top of his head. He massaged it into his scalp and dived under the water to rinse it off.

Paying little Clark just as much attention as he was paying him, Brainy worked on his experiments until his message systems reminded him to do a self scan. Making sure nothing would explode while his back was turned, Brainy went to the Frankenstein-esque slab on the other side of the room and lay down upon it.

"Computo, initiate scan."

As the computer began to hum and lights passed over Brainy, little Clark popped out of the water and watched him for a bit before returning to the rim of the bowl for a better look.

"What are you doing?"

Brainy kept his eyes closed and remained still.

"Testing for problems."

"Problems in yourself?" little Clark scratched his scalp. "Like what?"

"My heart has been acting irregularly lately," Brainy explained.

There was a sound like a splash and suddenly there was a warmth growing in the middle of Brainy's chest.

Opening his eyes, Brainy blushed as he saw that wet, _naked_ little Clark was the source of the warmth, laying on his stomach and looking at him.

"Don't worry Brainy, I'll protect your heart," little Clark declared.

Brainy stared, his heart acting irregularly again for a moment, then groaned. His scan was ruined.

Since scans were immediately analyzed for errors, it was useless to try and do another scan that day. After demanding that Clark finish rinsing off and get dressed, Brainy returned to his experiments, wondering if his subconscious hated him.

When he was dry and dressed, little Clark sat on top of Brainy's head asking what he was doing, why and how it worked.

Yes, he was sure of it; his subconscious hated him.

As it turned out, little Clark didn't need to eat regularly either, for by the time they left the lab it was nighttime and neither had noticed the passing of lunch and dinner.


	7. Chapter 7

09/29/09

Happy Birthday Noriko Sakuma! :3

Since this is the first entry since C+B week, I just though I'd let you know that some people said that they'd still like to submit something so I'll be waiting until they're done before I do the journal in Da.

ENJOY!

Chapter 7

Among the things Brainy had Computo replicate for little Clark, besides clothes, were little plates, glasses and silverware, a little bed complete with pillows, sheets and a blanket, along with a small desk and chair. Enough for small living quarters, such as an apartment, if that were to be the case.

Once Brainy had returned to his room with these things hidden out of plain sight, and the eyes on the security cameras, in a box, he began to look for a place to arrange them. His desk was too dangerous for little Clark since he was likely to distractedly push them aside if he came upon an idea and needed the space. The shelves were too filled with texts and other research that could crush little Clark if given half a chance.

Eventually Brainy settled on laying the box on its side behind his headboard. It was out of sight from the doorway and he rarely walked in that area so it was safe from discovery and trampling.

After setting everything up Brainy looked around the room for little Clark only to discover him fast asleep on his pillow, all spread out into an 'X' shape, flat on his back.

The Coluan almost chuckled at the sight but restrained himself. He carefully lifted the little being, placed him in the little bed and covered him up without waking him.

Soon enough Brainy was in his own bed, asleep as well.

Waking up with a grumble, little Clark sat up and rubbed at his eyes. He barely spared his new arrangements a glance before sleepily flying out of them. Shortly after landing on the bed, he returned to sleep, snuggled tightly against Brainy's neck.

Throughout the night Brainy dreamed, though he couldn't discern exactly what about. He just knew that the colors of blue, red and yellow were involved and that he stood very close to whatever shape they made. The colors were also very warm and made him feel safe.

When Brainy woke up in the morning, the warmth of the dream fading for the most part, and felt little Clark against his neck, he was tempted to fake rolling over on top of him to teach him a lesson about personal space and staying out of his bed. But he restrained himself, and continued to lie in bed for a while longer.

He listened to little Clark's breathing and wondered what he was going to do. Even if he _could_ keep little Clark hidden forever there was no way he could live with little Clark always hovering around him.

Would it be asking too much to set down some ground rules?

Theorizing it would be best to shower before little Clark woke up, Brainy sat up to sneak out of bed, only to feel a weight in his hair.

Though he knew what it was, Brainy had to look to make sure. He hesitantly lifted his hair for a look.

Right as always, Brainy discovered that little Clark, still sleeping, had managed to entangle himself in his hair during the night.

"Ground rule number one," Brainy grumbled, glaring at the little sleeping figure. "No using my hair as bedding."


End file.
